


Hands in Their Pockets

by LoveChilde



Category: Power Rangers Samurai
Genre: Gen, Hugging, Mild Angst, Siblings, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:32:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveChilde/pseuds/LoveChilde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On her first night surrounded by a team of loud, friendly Rangers used to random physical intimacy, after years of isolation, Lauren is a little overwhelmed. Jayden helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands in Their Pockets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PunkPinkPower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/gifts).



> Beta by [wildforce71](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wildforce71)and [Hagar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar), all remaining mistakes are my own. Prompt was, in paraphrase, Jayden and Lauren, touch-starved and learning to handle the team and their grabby hands.

It was the hands that gave it away, and the eyes. 

Jayden would be the first to admit that he wasn’t the best at reading people. In fact, it had taken him a year of being surrounded by expressive, open, overly-friendly people to even start catching on to people’s feelings without having them pointed out to him verbally. Hell, at first he hadn’t even known how to handle the verbal cues; it wasn’t like Ji had provided him with a wide range of expressions and emotions to study. People skills and empathy weren’t part of his training, and it had taken him months to realize just how important they were. 

No, Jayden wasn’t the best at reading people, but right now he was reading Lauren like an open book. He recognized the slightly haunted, bewildered look on her face from seeing it in the mirror, saw how she was carefully keeping out of anybody’s reach- and noted that her hands were stuffed deep in the pockets of her shorts. He looked down at his own hands, which were in his pockets as well, and pushed off from the wall he’d been leaning against. Samurai reflexes came in handy when he placed himself in front of Lauren just ahead of Mike, who looked like he was about to try and draw her physically into the board game the others were playing. 

“I’m going outside for a bit.” He said, one hand casually moving to block Mike. “Lauren, want to come with?”

“Um. Sure?” She sounded hesitant, but she followed him all the same. The others were familiar enough with his tendency to go out alone to leave them be- and Jayden noted that Emily stopped Antonio from saying something as they left. Emily could almost always be trusted to notice when he needed space, and it was good to know she could notice the same in Lauren- or at least that she trusted Jayden enough to let him draw his sister away without comment.

He led Lauren out to his favorite fallen log behind the house, silent, and sat down on it. Lauren remained standing, looking awkward and unsure of herself, tensed, as if expecting some kind of attack. Jayden tilted his head up, looking at the stars, and only kept half an eye on her, still in complete silence. After almost three full minutes, Lauren relaxed, letting her shoulders slump, and sat down all the way on the other side of the log, just at the far end of Jayden’s reach if he stretched his arm. It was another five minutes before she finally spoke.

“Thanks. For- uh- this.”

“Sure,” he replied quietly. 

There was another long silence, until finally Lauren asked, “Are they...always like this?”

“Usually, yeah. They can get kind of overwhelming,” he admitted in reply, and added, “Sometimes I just need to hear myself think, for a while. Alone.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “They’re very...loud. And- touchy.”

“They mean well.” He was quick to defend his team. Even though they were Lauren’s now, he still knew them better- and remembered what he’d thought about them, in the early days. “They don’t understand how it can look, or feel, or- well, you know. They just don’t get it.”

Lauren nodded her acknowledgement, and again, took a long while before speaking. “The only times I had that many people around me, after I left home, was when I trained in defending myself against a group of attackers. They never stayed around to talk, after we finished- and they never- I mean, if they touched me, I was hitting them, or- or it meant that I’d _failed_.” Jayden finally turned to look at her directly, and she flinched before she could get control of herself. Jayden felt a slow burn of anger in his gut, added to the anger he usually kept tightly controlled, but which had grown the more he learned about normal childhoods, and how far from his own they were. Lauren’s now seemed somehow even worse than his had been.

“I worried about this, you know- when I was activated.” He didn’t respond to her actual words, but answered her experience by sharing one of his own. “Ji activated me months before the other Rangers showed up, he only called them in when it became clear to him that there were too many Nighloks for me to handle alone.” With Lauren, he allowed a touch of the bitterness he felt at that memory to thread through his words, and she blinked, noting it. “I wasn’t sure I’d know how to lead a team. After you left, and Antonio left, all I ever had was Ji. But he said that part of being the Red Ranger meant that I’d know how to lead them, instinctively.” 

“And?” He’d gotten her interested, and Jayden hid a smile at her prompt. 

“He was half-right. I knew how to lead them in combat, which attacks to call, who to send where- most of the time, anyway. We had some issues to sort out, but in the field, being Red Ranger was enough. Off it, though...They might as well have been aliens.” Or he might’ve been, he thought, because they seemed to understand each other just fine. They had a whole world of context that he just didn’t have. “You were old enough to go to school, Before. Older kids aren’t that different from younger, or so Ji said.” His mouth twisted in something that wasn’t quite a smile, and the same twist was mirrored at him from Lauren.

“I barely remember school. It was twelve years ago, and a lot happened in between. Your team-”

“ _Your_ team,” he corrected gently, and she huffed, irritated.

“ _The_ team. They seem louder than the kids in my class were. And they’re very...open?”

“They think Rangers should be family.” Jayden shrugged, then realized what he’d said and winced, “That- didn’t come out right.”

“Why not? They think the team should be close. Families are close.” Lauren said it neutrally, as if reciting a lesson, and then amended, “Most families are close.” 

Things were getting awkward again, and Jayden took a slow breath and let it out even more slowly, giving them both time to center themselves. “Now you’re back, we could be, you know. I missed you so much, when you left. I mean, you were just _gone_ , and nobody explained anything until years later, and then Father…” 

“I cried myself to sleep for weeks.” Lauren’s confession, abrupt and brittle-sounding, saved Jayden from having to finish that sentence, which he appreciated. “Until my training got intensive enough that I was too tired even for that.” 

“Same here.” It was easier for him to admit it, since she had. “Think Ji and your monks were coordinating? Riding us hard enough that we’d forget?”

“I _never_ forgot, Jayden!” The reply held more emotion than he’d heard from her so far, and her hand was on his arm- when had they even moved close enough to touch? He glanced down, and she followed his eyes and drew back as if burned. Even in the twilight he could see her face color. “S-sorry-”

“It’s okay.” He reached out for her, now, slow and unthreatening, one finger only, to poke her arm. “I didn’t think you’d forgotten. And you’re allowed to touch me, you know. The others do it all the time, it sort of...you get used to it, eventually.” He still only initiated physical contact rarely, himself, either entirely without thought or after careful consideration, but never what he thought of as ‘naturally’. 

“I’m not...I don’t know what’s considered appropriate and what isn’t.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I mean, Mike kept grabbing my hand, and I’ve been taught that- that hand-holding is considered a romantic gesture- and-” 

“Mike’s not hitting on you.” Jayden cut her off hurriedly. At least, for Mike’s sake Jayden hoped that he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how he should react to his friends being interested in is sister like that, but he had a vague idea that violence might somehow be called for. “Not unless he’s also hitting on Mia, Emily, me, Kevin, Antonio and once on Ji.” He flashed a quick grin. “It’s just Mike. He does that.”

“And people are okay with him doing that?” Lauren sounded puzzled, and Jayden remembered his own confusion, until he got used to it. 

“Everybody else was, so I figured I should be as well, until I just stopped thinking about it. They just- you know. Emily randomly hugs people, or at least it seems random to me, I’m sure it makes sense to her. And Kevin thinks slapping someone on the shoulder isn’t an attack, it’s a friendship thing- so don’t flip him over if he does that. That time was awkward.” He shook his head, remembering Kevin’s hurt and confused expression that even Jayden, three days into living with a group of people, could understand. 

“Ouch.” Lauren’s expression turned sympathetic. “So I’m not the only one with that reaction, that’s good to know, I guess. Mia’s easier to deal with, at least.”

“Yeah, Mia’s great.” Jayden agreed with a small smile. “She’s more careful about touching people. It was nice, in the beginning.” When he was so overwhelmed some days that he thought he’d go crazy, and only meditation and long hours of training alone helped him ground himself. He became much better at mediation after it became a escape, a time when he knew nobody’d bother him. 

“And I think I’m safe from Antonio; he seems to focus most of his touching on you.” Lauren’s voice took on a teasing note, and it was Jayden’s turn to flush and look away. He quickly changed the subject. 

“Anyway, you get used to them getting in your space all the time. Stealing food from your plate, pushing around you in the kitchen- just be glad we all have our own bathrooms.” Sharing would’ve probably made mornings nightmarish. Lauren seemed to share his opinion, if her expression was any indication. “And you might find you like it, touching.” 

“It’s...not bad. Once I realize that I don’t need to defend myself against it.” She admitted, and he nodded once.

“Just...take it slowly, and learn what the new boundaries are. It’s- it’s good, you know? I don’t think I could go back to the way things were before they came. It’d be too -lonely, I guess.” The thought of going back to long, empty years, having no other voices around but Ji’s, very little physical contact outside of training, none of it very warm or friendly, filled him with dread. But he knew what he needed to do, to let Lauren do her duty as the head of the Shiba Clan, and he would do it. It was his duty. 

She thought for a long while, and then sighed. “Yeah. I could get used to it. It’s not bad.” 

He gave her a few more moments of silence, then asked, “Do you, uh- want to practice? I won’t be offended if you want to stop, or react like I’m attacking you. We can go slow.” 

She seemed surprised, but then nodded. “Okay. What should I do?”

“Just...do what I do? And tell me if it gets to be too much.” He turned to face her and slowly moved one hand, making sure she saw what he was doing, to take her left hand in his right, spreading his open palm against hers as it opened as well. Her hand was smaller than his, and he smiled, stretching his fingers to the fullest. “I still think of you as bigger than me. Sort of surprises me to have to look down, now.”

“You grew up, little brother. But I can still kick your ass.” Her hand was warm against his, and she flexed her fingers, twining them with his. 

“I know you can.” He was quiet for a moment. “I...used to do this, alone. Just, imagine one of my hands was somebody else’s, to practice how to touch. It’s not the same when there isn’t actually somebody else there.” In the dark, it was easier to tell her this. She was the one person who might understand.

“Oh, Jayden.” She blinked very fast a few times, and her eyes seemed brighter, but she didn’t say anything else. A little embarrassed, he decided to move on. 

“Other hand?”

She reached for him now, and he called it a victory. They sat for a while, just holding hands, studying each other in the twilight as he searched for the child she had been, his glorious big sister, in the woman she was now. She was still there, under the weight of years and their joint mission to save the world. 

“Okay if I hug you?”

“Uh huh.” 

He wrapped her in his arms, remembering their last hug goodbye when she left- when she was sent away; it had been hurried, he’d been half-asleep, and she didn’t cry (Shiba children didn’t cry where Father could see), but he remembered her heart beating fast, her voice trembling as she told him she’d come back, some day. He’d barely understood it then. Now, she rested her head on his shoulder, and he felt her heart again, not racing, a steady beat against his own. It felt like the best and most _right_ thing in the world. It made him want to cry, knowing what he had to do. But Shiba men didn’t cry, either. 

“We can do it, can’t we? We can defeat him?” Her voice was muffled in his shirt.

“You can do it. You will. You’ll win, Lauren.”

There couldn’t be two Red Rangers. He would leave in the morning, to let the real Red Ranger lead the team to victory. But for now, he had this moment, and maybe it was enough, for both of them, to last until they’d won.


End file.
